The Time is Now: Reflections on Advancing a Feminist Labor Agenda at Thinking Gender 2025

By Da In Choi, Thinking Gender 2025 Conference Coordinator 

“Ask yourself: For whom am I doing this research? For what purpose?” The room teemed with energy and activities. Saba Waheed, an experienced activist and scholar who has worked with the UCLA Labor Center for decades (and is its current director), shared how she came to develop a research justice framework to a room full of graduate students, a few faculty and some staff. Saba and Adriana Paz Ramirez, general secretary of the International Domestic Workers Federation, were the perfect co-facilitators for a workshop on “Research as Resistance” for the Thinking Gender conference. Adriana has led movements for the rights of farmworkers and domestic workers in North America, Latin America, and beyond. Reflecting the theme of gendered labors and transnational solidarities, we gathered to think about our own roles as researchers in advancing feminist agendas through labor justice.

For me as a conference coordinator, after months of behind-the-scenes work, it felt incredibly rewarding to see the room vibrant with life as participants discussed the ethics of research. Both Adriana and Saba emphasized the ongoing aspect of research justice: we have to constantly ask ourselves, what does it mean to practice research justice? Recognizing injustice is easier. Academia stems from colonial practices of extraction. For example, researchers from the Global North benefit from the extraction of stories, knowledge, labors, and bodies of Indigenous people. How do we then practice something different, mobilizing knowledge for justice? Having worked with domestic workers for decades, both Saba and Adriana discussed domestic workers’ leadership in centering their own experiences and networks. Although academic spaces often assume that laws are more progressive in the Global North, Adriana emphasized that domestic workers in the Global South are the ones who push the boundaries of laws. Rather than elites in the Global North improving working conditions as a form of charity, the domestic workers from the Global South are the ones who articulate that their work is dignified work. Domestic workers have foregrounded their own experiences as crucial sites of knowledge production that can advance feminist labor agendas transnationally.

For me as a PhD student who conducts historical research on domestic servitude in South Korea after the Korean War, the questions raised during the conference were helpful. I asked myself, “Why am I doing this research? Who is this for?” I work mostly with archival materials, and at times it is difficult to understand how my work can contribute to research justice in the present day. My previous work with Saba and the California Domestic Workers’ Coalition (CDWC) to evaluate education and outreach programs for domestic workers’ labor rights had been foundational for me in situating my research more broadly within the histories of ongoing struggles for labor justice. I was struck by domestic workers’ leadership in educating one another about their rights because they understood their own expertise in how to negotiate and fight for more dignified working conditions. Domestic workers’ struggles did not always fall under a formalized organizing framework and often took place in informal networks of friendship and advocacy. Similarly, in my historical research, I felt inspired to see how domestic servants in South Korea in the 1960s – who were often seen as voiceless or abject subjects – also formed friendships, wrote, and advocated for themselves and others when formal organizing or legal recourse were not readily available.

During the Thinking Gender conference keynote, Adriana gave a powerful speech about how domestic workers who were seen as the margin of the labor movement became the center in changing our understanding of the informal labor market. Often dismissed as unorganizable because households were not recognized as workplaces – in addition to many immigrant women of color working in this sector – domestic workers have shown what collective power can do to transform social perception about the value of labor. Labor organizers and keynote panelists Lorena Lopez and Yesenia DeCasaus (from UNITE HERE Local 11 and United Domestic Workers/AFSCME Local 3930 respectively), spoke of hope in this turbulent climate. Their message was, “Now is the time to act!” Two months prior, LA wildfires had impacted some of the most precarious immigrant domestic workers by taking away their employment and safety networks. However, domestic workers and organizations such as CDWC had also been at the forefront of providing mutual aid and care, highlighting that we are all interdependent. Our lives and labors sustain one another. Even when public infrastructures and social safety networks erode, understanding our interdependence and the care networks on the ground is crucial to surviving during this time of growing economic, political, and social precarity.

I was also reminded of the importance of creating a space where like-minded people can gather and have conversations. Even after the completion of my term as Thinking Gender 2025 coordinator, what lingers are the memories of the warmth of students, faculty, and staff who made the logistics and flow of the conference smooth and fun; the realization that there are so many committed scholar-activists around the US who are thinking through the how of useful research to advance feminist labor agendas; and the hope and optimism that people like Saba, Adriana, Lorena, and Yesenia exemplify through their efforts to create a more equitable society where historically denigrated work of many migrant women of color is valued. Lorena’s and Yesenia’s words, “the time is now,” resonate with me as I prepare to continue my journey as a feminist scholar of labor. I hope you take their words to heart as well.

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About the Author

Da In Choi is a PhD student in the Gender Studies department at UCLA. Her research examines the figure of singmo (domestic workers) in South Korea in the context of Cold War development, capitalistic morality, and international feminist religious organizations’ involvement. Da In’s broad research interests include gender and migration, reproductive justice movement, community-engaged research, racial capitalism, and theories on care.